"Ew She Bald-Headed"

“Ew She Bald-Headed”

That’s what they said to me. I turned to them, fighting the ball of anxiety in my throat and the tears welling behind my eyes and asked, “why don’t you like me? what did I do to you guys?”. They all ran away laughing. I stood there in the hallway. Alone. I felt so alone. I always felt so alone. But I knew I was on the right path for me.

This was my life. 2008. 7th grade. Middle School. ‘Twas a social shock to say the least, existing as the “bald-headed” misfit, (and I wasn’t even bald -_-). *sigh*. But, in order to understand more about this story, I’ll have to walk you back a little.

To many, wearing one’s natural hair doesn’t seem like it would be a big deal, but in the black community, at this time, it certainly was. I worked in a hair salon throughout middle school as a receptionist, an occasional sweeper, and a change-maker - as in, I’d go next door to the neighboring shops to see if I could get change for big bills. Whew. 12 hours of work on the weekends in exchange for $25 dollars and an earful of stories. Many stories. So many stories. I heard stories about how certain jobs, opportunities and even dating prospects were “lost” by the choice to wear one’s natural hair. “Crazy”, I thought. It’s freaking crazy how much people conclude about others based on their looks. It was things like this that fueled me to go natural.

Growing up, my hair was relaxed regularly. Not bone straight (cause I couldn’t withstand the pain long enough before the “relaxer” had to be abruptly and chaotically rinsed out of my hair), just enough to “loosen my texture a bit”. For a product called relaxer the entire process was not very relaxing if you ask me. As I grew older I knew something was off. Why does this hurt so bad? Why does this burn? Why do I sometimes have scabs on my scalp and it hurts to wash my hair with water for weeks? Why does my mom have to wear gloves to apply this to my SCALP? Every second month I had to undergo the pain of white blobs of toxic paste being slapped onto my hair and massaged into my roots. Especially the roots. Cause that’s where the new growth is. That tough, nappy, new growth. I remember trying my best to withstand the pain as my mom encouraged me to just let it sit for a little while longer so it would relax well. I was so “tender-headed”. Once it went on and it had to come right off, so I never had bone straight hair, but I do remember being okay with the outcome. It was all that I knew. It was regular. Pretty much every black girl at school, on tv, and in the magazines had straight hair.

But in 2007 there was a movement. A movement many call “the natural hair movement”. On youtube, and on forums like blackhairmedia, lived hundreds and thousands of black women each going on the same journey, learning to love their natural selves. I’d browse for hours and hours and hours in awe. Twi, 3b, 3c, 4a, 4b - new terminology, new hair tools. The steamer was one of my favs. With relaxed hair we were never supposed to let our hair get too wet or else it would “ruin” the straightness of our hair. Now the women on these forums are encouraging me to sit in a steam bath, and co-wash often, how delightful ^_^. I loved this. I loved this so much. I researched and research. I learned what relaxer really was. I saw a video on youtube where this relaxer product was applied onto a soda can and it melted the can. Wow. That was one of the craziest things I had ever seen, especially knowing that this was the same paste that was being applied to my head for years. Made me feel like a dang wolverine and definitely redefined, for me, what it meant for someone to truly have a thick skull. Ha. Anyways, between the desire to discover my natural hair and the disgust of discovering what relaxer really was- I decided to make my transition.

It started off great. Wow. So this is what my natural hair looks like. I’d take pictures and do length checks and track my progress. So exciting! But what I didn’t love- or maybe just not as much, was the detangling process. Painful, long, tedious. In the beginning, it was cute, touching my natural coils was exciting- but spending hours detangling my hair every few days/weeks wasn’t easy. I remember asking my mom for help and she would tell me “no! You need to relax your hair. You don’t need to keep the relaxer on for too long, just a little bit just to soften the texture of your hair. You know ____ [insert cousin with very beautiful, softer, less coarse and more loosely textured hair here]? She has soft hair but your hair is NOT like that. You need to relax it! I don’t know where you’re learning this new thing from. It’s so tangled and you don’t comb it well! I’m not touching it” “It’s too stressful” she’d tell me. Sometimes I’d cry. Not so much cause she wouldn’t help, but because I felt so alone in my understanding. How could you tell me to relax my hair?! I’d explain the dangers of relaxer over and over but it wasn’t enough...

So I did my own hair. It wasn’t always perfect but I thought it was okay. My hair always looked was very short. My type of hair texture coils up on itself like a slinky. So no matter how long it grew, it looked very short. One of my biggest social-shock moments was wearing my natural hair to school. There wasn’t any other girl I can recall who wore her hair natural to school at this time. I was the only one. And I already went to a school where as a black girl I was the minority. Rural farmland Pennsylvania. That’s where I lived. There weren’t a lot of faces like mine and there weren’t a lot of afros around. I really felt like a misfit. But what really made me upset was the girls who did look like me calling me names. I was called bald headed. BALD - HEADED. And as a black girl. That’s one of the rudest insults ever. It’s made to sting. To pain. So many of us black girls spend hours on our hair, put so much beauty into our manes. So when I showed up with short styled afro hair and the girls would call me bald headed and run away it made me feel upset. Why don’t you like me? Why can’t you see me? This is the hair of our families. It was isolating.

I used to eat lunch at a table of other black girls but one day, on my way to the table, almost everyone pilled up their backpacks in my seat as a subtle message- “you’re not allowed to sit here”. They didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything. They just stared at me with smirks so as to say- this isn’t your seat anymore. I guess I was uncool. Too uncool to be close to. Too uncool to sit near, so I started eating in the library. Occasionally I would read Seventeen magazine and see some girls with hair that looked like mine. Gosh it would make me feel so happy. However, I found great self confidence in seeing the afros of different girls on tv, in the magazines, and at the stores blown up on big photos. How majestic. Anywhere I saw a girl with hair like me, I felt so seen. Beautiful. Recognized. I remember feeling like I would love to model someday, showcasing beautiful afro hair and representing the girls. 7 years later I did just that. In that same Seventeen Magazine. In 4 different editions. There I was with a big ol' 'fro, just to let the girlies know: we are beautiful.